Abstract

This study aimed to answer three research questions: (1) What, if any, issues are posed by the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change for major Australian sport stadia (MASS) and the organisations that manage them?; (2) How are the organisations that manage major Australian sport stadia responding to climate change?, and; (3) Why are the organisations that manage major Australian sport stadia responding to climate change in the way they do? Although previous management and sport management research have examined a range of environmental and some climate change issues, there has not been a study of the implications of climate change for major sport stadia – or the organisations that manage them – in Australia, or overseas. Although some management studies have identified climate change specifically as an important problem, little attention has been paid to its physical impacts on sport, and none have considered potential impacts on major sport stadia, or the regulatory and commercial impacts on the organisations that manage them. Equally, few previous studies have examined how sport organisations interpret climate change, contribute to it by way of the direct or indirect generation of greenhouse gas emissions, or respond to its various impacts.